One of the most common questions that people ask cardiologists is how vodka affects blood pressure (BP), and whether it is possible to drink strong alcoholic drinks for hypertension and hypotension. Such interest is understandable, because many feasts and holidays are not complete without the use of strong drinks, and they guess about their effect on the body, but not everyone knows. Today we need to figure out whether vodka increases or decreases blood pressure, how much you can drink so as not to provoke blood pressure surges, and what is the effect of the drink on hypertensive and hypotensive patients.
What we must not forget
Defenders of alcoholic beverages argue that if you drink “skillfully”, alcohol exhibits medicinal properties. Allegedly, with regular consumption of vodka in small doses, you can ensure normalization of blood pressure, strengthen the immune system and general health. Then the question of whether vodka increases blood pressure will no longer be necessary.
Even if you believe such an institution, you should not forget that vodka, like any alcoholic drink, can cause addiction if consumed frequently. Then alcoholism comes - a terrible misfortune for the person himself and his entire family. Alcohol also has a detrimental effect on the heart, stomach, pancreas and other internal organs. Trying to lower blood pressure with a drink can lead to stomach ulcers, pancreatitis, and myocardial infarction.
Factors that increase blood pressure
Factors that influence the increase in blood pressure are: excess weight, poor diet (excessive consumption of salty foods), physical inactivity, constant stress, depression and use of contraceptives (in women).
Alcohol consumption is one of the most common causes of high blood pressure among the population.
In chronic alcoholism, alcoholic drinks increase blood pressure, after which it can drop sharply when a person is sober or suffers from a hangover during the abstinence period.
High blood pressure is often observed in alcoholics who regularly drink alcohol.
How does vodka affect the human body?
Experts' answer to the question of whether vodka increases or decreases blood pressure cannot be unambiguous. Every body is different, so alcohol affects people differently.
For the same reason, it is impossible to answer how vodka affects the blood pressure of a specific person in a specific situation. The body's reaction depends on the following conditions:
- age;
- features of the diet (easier than a snack);
- whether the person is under stress;
- what medications does he take during this period of time?
- how often does he drink alcohol?
- stage of intoxication.
Alcohol consumption by people with high blood pressure
The danger of drinking alcohol for people with high blood pressure is that it is extremely damaging to health.
The risks of experiencing high blood pressure among alcoholics are much higher than among people who drink alcohol no more than once a month in small quantities.
The total volume of alcohol increases if a person drinks alcohol every day. This is dangerous because blood pressure does not have time to reach normal levels. Alcohol constantly causes high blood pressure, which is life-threatening.
Is there a healing dose?
Those who are interested in whether vodka lowers or increases blood pressure will be interested in the following information. Drinking alcohol has two effects on blood pressure. If you drink 30-50g of vodka, your blood pressure may drop and vascular tone will improve. Doctors explain this by saying that after the first drink, the blood vessels dilate, blood flow accelerates, and the load on their walls decreases. This is how ethanol (a component of ethyl alcohol) contained in alcoholic beverages affects blood vessels.
It seems useful, but it's not that simple. This state does not last long. After about 20-30 minutes, the vessels spasm, and blood pressure rises sharply. This is due to the fact that the acceleration of blood flow in the vessels leads to increased work of the heart muscle. The heart begins to work intensively, the pulse accelerates, and the pressure rises. We come to a vicious circle.
In addition, usually the participants of the feast do not limit themselves to one glass. With each subsequent portion of drinking, blood pressure continues to rise.
The effect of alcohol on the nervous system
The human brain is a kind of control panel for the entire body. Its cortex contains centers for memory, reading, movement of body parts, smell, and vision. Poor circulation and cell death of any center are accompanied by shutdown or weakening of brain functions. This is accompanied by a decrease in a person’s cognitive (cognitive) abilities.
The influence of alcohol on the human psyche is expressed in a decrease in intelligence and personality degradation:
- memory impairment;
- decreased IQ;
- hallucinations;
- loss of critical attitude towards oneself;
- immoral behavior;
- incoherent speech.
Under the influence of alcohol on the nervous system, a person’s behavioral reactions change. He loses his modesty and restraint. He does things that he wouldn't do in his right mind. Stops being critical of your emotions. He experiences unmotivated attacks of rage and anger. A person’s personality degrades in direct proportion to the amount and duration of alcohol consumption.
Gradually a person loses interest in life. His creative and labor potential is declining. All this negatively affects career growth and social status.
Alcoholic polyneuritis of the lower extremities develops after prolonged use of ethyl alcohol. Its cause is inflammation of the nerve endings. It is associated with an acute deficiency of B vitamins in the body. The disease is manifested by a feeling of severe weakness in the lower extremities, numbness, and pain in the calves. Ethanol affects both muscles and nerve endings - it causes atrophy of the entire muscular system, which ends in neuritis and paralysis.
How does the body react to increasing doses?
If after taking a small dose of alcohol vascular tone improves, then increasing the portion, on the contrary, worsens vascular tone. The vessels spasm and contract, and it becomes increasingly difficult for blood to circulate throughout the body. And this increases the pressure. And with every glass you drink, your blood pressure levels increase. In the future, a hypertensive crisis or a heart attack while intoxicated may occur. It is for this reason, according to doctors, that alcohol abuse is harmful to everyone, and to hypertensive patients in particular.
Alcohol and hypertension treatment
Having dealt with the myth that vodka lowers blood pressure, it remains to understand how to behave for hypertensive patients who are taking medications for high blood pressure and want to drink alcohol. The simultaneous use of antihypertensive drugs and strong drinks can affect your well-being in the most negative way.
Under the influence of ethanol, the components of the drug behave unpredictably, as a result of which the drug penetrates the blood faster, causing an enhanced effect, disrupting blood circulation and creating a risk of cardiac arrest.
The same can be said about when a person, during a hangover, feels that his blood pressure has jumped and takes a pill to normalize his state of health. You should not drink antihypertensive drugs until the alcohol has completely left the body - this requires at least 24 hours. While intoxicated or hungover, even harmless
Nitroglycerin can cause cardiac arrest, so in case of severe intoxication and high blood pressure, it is better to call an ambulance. As it became clear, hypertension and vodka are not good neighbors. A decrease in blood pressure after the first couple of drinks is a deceptive phenomenon; after a few hours, ethanol will begin to disintegrate, producing the opposite effect and provoking the development of a hypertensive crisis.
When a person does not know the limits in drinking alcohol, this is fraught with serious consequences not only for blood pressure levels, but also for the heart, blood vessels, liver, kidneys and nervous system. It is advisable to completely exclude strong alcohol from the life of a hypertensive person; you can drink a little dry wine 2-3 times a week - this will relax the nervous system and strengthen the body.
Vodka and blood pressure: the body’s individual reaction
As already mentioned, the effect of vodka on the body of each person is purely individual. Sometimes drinking alcohol actually helps lower blood pressure. But this only happens to people who drink alcohol infrequently. The more and more often a person drinks vodka or other alcoholic drinks, the more this effect decreases. Subsequently, it disappears completely.
It happens that a person at a corporate party drinks in large quantities and feels good during the feast. But the next day his blood pressure will definitely increase. Moreover, the blood pressure indicator will directly depend on the amount of alcohol drunk the day before.
The impact of alcohol on the cardiovascular system can be completely unpredictable. Therefore, it does not matter at all how exactly vodka acts in case of high blood pressure in a person. It is important that the blood pressure indicator changes in an unnatural way under its influence. And erratic surges in blood pressure and heart rate are certainly harmful to health.
In the body of a person who abuses alcohol, not only problems with blood pressure occur. Other dangerous consequences include:
- cardiac ischemia;
- stomach diseases;
- pancreas;
- various problems with the circulatory system;
- kidney and liver diseases.
For people suffering from chronic diseases, it is better to abstain from drinking alcohol or reduce it to a minimum.
Is there an alternative
Is it possible to drink with high blood pressure? Doctors give a clear answer that this will have a detrimental effect on the condition of the brain, blood vessels and all functions of the body as a whole. During the purification of the blood from the breakdown products of ethyl alcohol, there is a strong load on the capillaries, the blood pressure increases, which is fraught with the development of a hypertensive crisis. But is there an alternative if there is a really good reason to drink or if it is simply inconvenient to refuse the offer of friends and relatives?
Vodka increases blood pressure, but as an option, you can drink beer instead. Light varieties of the drink do not contain large amounts of ethyl alcohol, do not negatively affect blood pressure and will not cause harm to health. To avoid a hangover and the harmful effects of alcohol breakdown, beer should be drunk in reasonable quantities; a single permissible dose should not exceed 330 ml, no more than 1-2 times a week.
If the doctor has diagnosed stage 2 hypertension, the amount of beer will have to be reduced to a glass once every 7 days. It is not recommended to drink beer for patients with heart and kidney failure, as well as for chronic hypertension. If there are no problems with the kidneys, the drink will have a beneficial effect on the body (consumed within the acceptable limit) - the amount of urine will increase, blood pressure will decrease, and swelling will go away.
Another option to avoid a hypertensive crisis is to drink natural red wine 2-3 times a week, 100-150 ml, no more. Otherwise, instead of benefiting the body, it will have a harmful effect on blood pressure levels. Drinking red wine within acceptable limits helps increase the elasticity of capillaries, normalizes their tone, helps lower blood pressure and stabilize its indicators.
No ads 3
Should hypertensive patients participate in feasts?
It is unlikely that a person with high blood pressure will never participate in family holidays, attend corporate events, celebrate the New Year, or receive guests. And the tradition of celebrating holidays with a glass in hand goes back to the distant past.
Doctors advise people suffering from hypertension to measure their blood pressure before visiting a restaurant or visiting someone. If it is within normal limits, you can drink a small dose of alcohol, equivalent to 30-50g of vodka or 0.5 liters of beer. If your blood pressure is elevated, even slightly, it is better to abstain from drinking.
Remember that regardless of how exactly alcohol affects blood pressure, even an absolutely healthy person should take moderation in drinking alcohol. There is no therapeutic dose of alcoholic beverages. Yes, and you need to be treated for hypertension not with alcohol, but with medications and a proper diet.
Alcohol with low blood pressure
Among hypotensive people who regularly drink alcohol, there is a common myth that in this way they normalize blood pressure levels upward and eliminate signs of vegetative-vascular dystonia. To figure out whether such a risk is justified, you need to know about the principle of the influence of strong drinks on the body. At the initial stage, after drinking 50-70 ml of vodka, a hypotensive person feels a deterioration in health - this is explained by the temporary effect of lowering pressure due to vasodilation.
How does smoking affect blood pressure?
If the pressure is already low, the symptoms of hypotension only get worse:
- dizzy;
- sweating increases;
- weakness and loss of strength are noted;
- coordination in space is impaired;
- nausea sets in;
- hands are shaking;
- drowsiness sets in.
If such symptoms appear, it is better to stop and no longer drink vodka, so as not to provoke health problems. But many hypotensive people prefer to drink more alcohol in order to normalize their well-being and achieve their goal. When alcohol is removed from the body, after some time, the pressure actually rises, and a person with vegetative-vascular dystonia feels more cheerful and cheerful (this is explained by stimulation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic central nervous system).
After a while, when it’s time for alcohol to be completely eliminated from the body, the nervous system comes into play, being subjected to inadequate stress. Hypotension and vegetative-vascular dystonia are inextricably linked; in diseases, the regulation of the autonomic part of the central nervous system, as well as the parasympathetic and sympathetic parts, is disrupted. They ensure the normal condition of the vascular walls and respond to changes in external and internal conditions, but when drinking alcohol they experience enormous overload.
The hypotensive body requires a lot of strength to recover after a feast
The pressure will drop even lower than it was initially, and dysfunction of the nervous system will manifest itself even more strongly. Therefore, people who abused alcohol the day before and have problems with low blood pressure will have to pay for the fun with even greater disruption in the functioning of the nervous system.
Effect of alcohol on the kidneys
The function of the kidneys is not only the formation and excretion of urine. They take part in balancing the acid-base balance and water-electrolyte balance, and produce hormones.
How does alcohol affect the kidneys? — when consuming ethanol, they go into intensive operation mode. The renal pelvis is forced to pump a large volume of fluid, trying to remove substances harmful to the body. Constant overload weakens the functional ability of the kidneys - over time, they can no longer work constantly in an enhanced mode. The effect of alcohol on the kidneys can be seen after a festive feast by a swollen face and high blood pressure. Fluid accumulates in the body, which the kidneys are unable to remove.
In addition, toxins accumulate in the kidneys, then stones form. Over time, nephritis develops. Moreover, after drinking alcohol, it happens that the kidneys hurt, the temperature rises, and protein appears in the urine. The progression of the disease is accompanied by the accumulation of toxins in the blood, which the liver is no longer able to neutralize and the kidneys to remove.
Lack of treatment leads to the development of renal failure. In this case, the kidneys cannot form and excrete urine. Poisoning of the body with toxins begins - general intoxication with a fatal outcome.
